This is another acrostic psalm in the Hebrew. “To You, O Lord,” it says, “I lift up my soul; in You, my God, I put my trust.” Truly, the rest of this psalm, concerned entirely with prayerful trust, may be read simply as commentary on the first verse. Psalm 25 begins with such a “lifting up” of our inner being to God, and we commence our labor each day by raising our hearts and mind to God. If we want to “pray always,” as Holy Scripture tells us to do, it is important to raise our souls to God right away as we face the day’s labor. Otherwise, there is great likelihood that our occupations will involve us in endless distractions that blind us to the thought of God’s presence. If this is a good psalm with which to commence the activities of the day, nonetheless, it is also an excellent psalm with which to close them. In this respect, several lines of Psalm 25 beseech the mercy of God for those many sins and failings with which our conscience is invariably stricken as we look back over the previous activities of the day. Mindful of our numerous offenses, we pray at nightfall, “Remember Your compassion, O Lord, and Your mercy, for they are eternal…Guard my soul and deliver me.” Thus our psalm ends, “Redeem Israel, O God, from all his afflictions.” (Reardon, p. 47-48)